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The U.S. Department of Education is poised to spend half a
billion dollars to help create new charter schools, while the public is
being kept in the dark about which states have applied for the lucrative
grants, and what their actual track records are when it comes to
preventing fraud and misuse.
Already the federal government has spent $3.3 billion in American tax dollars under the Charter Schools Program (CSP), as tallied by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD).

But the government has done so without requiring any accountability from the states and schools that receive the money, as CMD revealed earlier this year.
Throwing good money after bad, Education Secretary Arne Duncan called for a 48 percent increase in federal charter funding earlier this year, and the House and Senate budget proposals also call for an increase—albeit a more modest one—while at the same time slashing education programs for immigrants and language learners.
The clamor for charter expansion comes despite the fact that there are federal probes underway into suspected waste and mismanagement within the program, not to mention ongoing and recently completed state audits of fraud perpetrated by charter school operators.
Earlier this year, the Center for Popular Democracy documented more than $200 million
in fraud, waste, and mismanagement in the charter school industry in 15
states alone, a number that is likely to be just the tip of the
iceberg.
Is now really the right time to plow more tax money into charters?Insiders Deliberate Far from the Public Eye
The
Department of Education is currently deciding what states to award $116
million this year, and more than half a billion during the five-year
grant cycle.
So who is in the running and what are their track records?
Which
states have applied for a grant designed to eviscerate the public
school system in the name of “flexibility?” (CMD's review of state
applications and reviewers' comments from the previous grant cycle
exposed “flexibility” as a term of art
used by the industry for state laws that allow charter schools to:
operate independently from locally elected school boards, employ people
to teach without adequate training or certification, and avoid
collective bargaining that helps ensure that teacher-student ratios are
good so that each kid gets the attention he or she deserves.)
There is no way of knowing.
The
U.S Department of Education has repeatedly refused to honor a CMD
request under the Freedom of Information Act for the grant applications,
even though public information about which states have applied would
not chill deliberation and might even help better assess which
applicants should receive federal money.
The agency has even declined to provide a list with states that have applied:

“We cannot release a list of states that have applied while it is in the midst of competition."

The
upshot of this reticence is that states will land grants—possibly to
the tune of a hundred million dollars or more in some cases—all at the
discretion of charter school interests
contracted to evaluate the applications, but without any input from
ordinary citizens and advocates concerned about public schools and
troubled by charter school secrecy and fraud.
But, if
people in a state know that a state is applying they can weigh in so
that the agency is not just hearing from an applicant who wants the
money, regardless of the history of fraud and waste in that state.Charter Millions by Hook or by Crook: The Case of Ohio
Despite
ED’s unwillingness to put all the cards on the table, state reports
tell us that Ohio has once again applied for a grant under the program.
The state, whose lax-to-non-existing charter school laws are an embarrassment even to the industry, has previously been awarded at least $49 million in CSP money—money that went to schools overseen by a rightwing think-tank, and, more worryingly, to schools overseen by an authorizer that had its performance rating boosted this year by top education officials who removed the failing virtual schools from the statistics so as not to stop the flow of state and federal funds.
As The Plain Dealer
put it in an exposé: “It turns out that Ohio’s grand plan to stop the
national ridicule of its charter school system is giving overseers of
many of the lowest-performing schools a pass from taking heat for some
of their worst problems.”
Another component of this plan,
it turns out, was to apply for more federal millions to the failing
schools that—by a miraculous sleight of hand—are no longer failing.
The director of Ohio’s Office of Quality School Choice, David Hansen, fell on the sword and announced his resignation in June. But Democratic lawmakers suspect that this goes higher up in the chain of command, and have called on State Superintendent Richard Ross to resign.
Did
the scrubbed statistics touting the success of Ohio’s charters find its
way into the state application for federal millions, signed by
Superintendent Ross?
What about other states, such as Indiana, with a similar history of doctoring data to turn failing charter schools into resounding success stories?
After Abysmal Results, States Re-apply for More Money
While the known unknowns are troubling, the known knowns—to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld—are also equally disturbing.
For example, Colorado applied for grant renewal this year.
But, the last time around, in 2010, the state landed a $46 million CSP grant thanks in no small part to the lax “hiring and firing”
rules and the lack of certification requirements for charter school
teachers--a reviewer contracted by the U.S. Department of Education to
score the application noted.
Look at California.
Through meeting minutes
from the California State Board of Education we also know that the
Golden State submitted an application this year. In 2010, California was
awarded $254 million over five years in CSP money, but as the Inspector General discovered in a 2012 audit,
the state department of education did not adequately monitor any of the
schools that received sub-grants. Some schools even received federal
money “without ever opening to students.” A review by CMD revealed that a
staggering 9 out of the 41 schools that shuttered in the 2014-'15
school year were created by federal money under CSP.
How about Wisconsin?
Wisconsin
received $69.6 million between 2010 and 2015, but out of the charter
schools awarded sub-grants during the first two years of the cycle,
one-fifth (16 out of 85) have closed since, as CMD discovered.
Then there’s Indiana.
Indiana
was awarded $31.3 million over the same period, partly because of the
fact that charter schools in the state are exempt from democratic
oversight by elected school boards. “[C]harter schools are accountable
solely to authorizers under Indiana law,” one reviewer enthused, awarding the application 30/30 under the rubric “flexibility offered by state law.”
This “flexibility” has been a recipe for disaster
in the Hoosier state with countless examples of schools pocketing the
grant money and then converting to private schools, as CMD discovered by
taking a closer look at grantees under the previous cycle:

The
Indiana Cyber Charter School opened in 2012 with $420,000 in seed money
from the federal program. Dogged by financial scandals and plummeting
student results the charter was revoked in 2015 and the school last
month leaving 1,100 students in the lurch.

Padua Academy
lost its charter in 2014 and converted to a private religious school,
but not before receiving $702,000 in federal seed money.

Have They Learned Anything?
Secretary Duncan has previously called for “absolute transparency”
when it comes to school performance, but that’s just a talking point
unless he releases the applications, or even a list of the states that
are in the running, before they are given the final stamp of approval.
As it stands, there is no way of knowing if the state departments of education seeking millions in tax dollars:

Have
supplied actual performance data that reflect the reality for students
enrolled in charter schools rather than “scrubbed” or doctored numbers;

Try
to outbid each other in “flexibility” by explaining, say, how charter
schools in X can hire teachers without a license and fire them without
cause. In its 2010 application,
the Colorado Department of Education, for example, boasted of how
charter school teachers are “employed at will by the school”;

Have
corrective action plans so as to avoid repeating the costly waste and
mistakes from the previous grant cycle (such as schools created by
federal seed money closing within a few years or never even opening).

Because
the federal charter schools program is designed to foster charter
school growth, which in turn means that money will be diverted from
traditional public schools to an industry that resists government
enforcement of basic standards for financial controls, accountability,
and democratic oversight, the public has a big stake in this and a right
to know more, before their money disappears down black holes.

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"A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

What media call "philanthropy" for the public schools are actually seed monies to establish a private "market" in publicly-financed education - an enterprise worth trillions if successfully penetrated by corporate America. Cory Booker, one of the "New Black Leaders" financed by the filthy rich, is key to creating a "nationwide corporate-managed schools network paid for by public funds but run by private managers.

"Ed Reformers" want to cash in on public education and to control its content and outcome, not improve it. Provide great education? Baby boomers had as close as this country has ever gotten to it when we were growing up. The Ed Reform Movement has no interest in seeing such a well-educated, democratically astute population ever again.

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

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Naturally, from a certain point of view. But, despite certain biases, Schierenbeck, a great guy, was one of the best NY Teacher reporters so this is worth reading. Jack suffered a debilitating stroke many years ago (I used to get secret donations to ed notes from him through a 3rd source.)

“The schism in the union over radical politics [is] a major reason for stalling the growth of a teacher union for decades.” Revolutionary politics and ideology take center stage, as the original Teachers Union becomes a battlefield, pitting leftist against leftist and splitting the union.

Clarence Taylor's "Reds at the Blackboard" focused on the old Teachers Union which disbanded in 1964 after suffering from anti-left attacks.

Effective Union Organizing

A video series put together by Jason Mann from the British Columbia Federation of Teachers about social media and how to use it for effective union organizing.

The first series was called New Media For Union Activists Roadmap and it's still available on-line at:http://www.newmediabootcamp.ca/welcome/I watched some of them and need to rewatch as they are loaded with information.

The second series started last week and it's called "Online Campaigning for Union Activists"

7 weeks Old - Nov. 2011

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

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Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

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Timothy TysonProfessor of African American Studies and HistoryDuke University

A Familiar Voice on Unions

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How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

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Outsource our children

Harlem $ucce$$ Academy Ad

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

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When asked if the drones were authorized to drop bombs on teachers who exhibit inadequacy, Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, replied, "Don't be ridiculous. Gates money puts other methods at our disposal."

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The Real Reason Behind Push for Standardized Tests: It's All About the Adults

On standardized testing in our schools

A must read article about the standardized test industry.Written by an insider who has worked as a test scorer, the article outlines a multinational industry based on an army of temporary workers paid by the piece at $0.30 to $0.70 per test, translated in the need to grade 40 tests per hour to make a $12 salary. The article goes on to show how the companies gauge the grading "results" based on the need to ensure new contracts to continue profiting off of our youth. The original article is from Monthly Review. Here it is on Schools Matter blog.

From Sharon Higgins

Parallels between America today and Germany in the 1920's and early 30's

"Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s."

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

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Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.

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